


Catch me

by BranwellBronte



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Anal Sex, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, M/M, a lot of being pounded into the mattress, an attempt at both angst and fluff, rolling around in bed, sexy talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 04:43:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19760842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BranwellBronte/pseuds/BranwellBronte
Summary: Commander James Fitzjames is very, very in love with Mr. Harry Goodsir, who might just feel the same and want to roll around in bed with him and give the mattress a good go.





	Catch me

“It has been related to me by the lieutenants that Mr. Goodsir is well regarded as an anatomist, but it is as a naturalist that the men have been observing him with the highest affection. Mr. Goodsir casts his nets over the side of the ship with the speed of Jupiter hurling lightning bolts at mortals in his disfavor. However, there is nothing of the tyrant in Mr. Goodsir – indeed, his speed is indicative of a ravenous desire to collect specimens. I can attest to Mr. Goodsir’s ravenous speeds and desires, as he is now pinning both my hands to the mattress and – _no, let me finish,_ keep your hips still, _god_ – his ravenous desires include being in the presence of both the creations he coaxes from our mother earth’s magisterial waves, and the presence of another human male form, which has been – _stop_ , you’ve no idea the fun I’m having – gleefully inscribed into the pages – _mmph,_ oh, _oh_ – of his mind which is as complex in its _creation_ of detailed reports as in his _dismantling_ of every nerve in my body – a mind as sharp as his hipbones, _ah_ , alright, I’m finished-”

“Your thrusts upwards, however gentle, imply to me that you are decidedly _not_ finished, James. An observation, nothing more.”

“You won’t record it in one of your reports, will you? Rub down on me more, yes, _yes_ like _that_.”

“Hmm, no, I’m quite finished with my reports for the day. Nightly reports are, however, unavoidable. Report to me how _this_ feels.”

“ _God above._ Your hipbones. Sharp like knives. But sweet ones. _”_

“‘Sweet knives’”?

“Shut up. A new specimen.”

“Name it.”

“You _tease_.”

“I strive for a satisfied mind – _mm_ , can you put your knee up even higher, higher yes, _yes_ – strive for a satisfied body.”

“I thought you said ‘mind.’”

“Blast my mind. It’s tired of thinking.”

“Consider your report approved then. Now rub against me harder.”

***

_Before-_

“I think he just might explode from glee one of these days. Either that or trample a hole in the deck, all that jumping for joy,” Graham Gore whispers to James Fitzjames as they watch Harry Goodsir leap from foot to foot around his soggy net that’s pooling water quickly around his ankles. “If I can be so bold, you made a good choice, Commander. He’s a rare talent.”

“He’s proven himself nearly incomparably intelligent in his knowledge of our voyage’s flora and fauna.” James takes a breath as Harry drops to his knees and accidentally splashes water on his face when his hands land in a puddle.

“Well, that too.”

“What else?” James turns his head in time to catch Gore peering at him, one side of his mouth crooked and his eyebrows raised.

Gore turns his head swiftly back to Harry, nodding his chin at him. “He’s knows he’s a talent but none of the men ever look like they have the urge to punch him. Bravo, sir.”

Gore leaves as some of the petty officers arrive and form a circle around Harry. They don’t bother hiding their laughter anymore, just as Harry doesn’t bother hollering at the number of specimens that look new to him. It’s a game by now and everyone knows their lines.  
“How many new ones, Harry?” they ask.

“More than all the girls you’ve ever kissed!” Harry slaps the deck in satisfaction as the officers double over.

“He’d sooner kiss his new fish than any girl,” one of them mumbles with honest affection in his voice, but James’s mouth twitches involuntarily at his words. The image of Harry Goodsir kissing anyone is enough to make his palms sweat even in the cold bluster of wind that rumples the sails while Harry ties up his net and the officers trail away, still laughing. Water trickles into Harry’s beard and rolls steadily down the bridge of his nose and off into the abyss of the net as he hauls it toward the lower deck. James’s hands are pleasantly dry in his gloves as they’re clasped behind his back, but his elbow jerks as Harry passes him and tips his head, water streaming down from his curls. James knows it would be a pleasure get his own hands wet on them. Every single curl was lovingly designed by God as to fit around a man’s finger and be caressed by his lips…

“A good evening to you, Commander. I know I’m certainly having one.” Harry grins bright as starshine on the waves.

James stills himself and says, perhaps a little more curtly than he means, “I hope you’ve caught at least one rarity, Mr. Goodsir.”

“Thank you, sir. Sir, if you’d only step a little to your right, please, or I’ll soak your boots as I pass.”

“Oh. Yes, that would be utterly tragic.” James shuffles to the side and feels keen disappointment as the distance grows between him and Harry. It feels wrong to move in the opposite direction of him, as if he’s a flower bending away from the sun instead of baring his face before it. 

“Thank you, sir.” Harry bows his head and James sees water trail down the back of his shirt, down his spine, down his lean legs.

“Best of luck, Mr. Goodsir.”

After Harry has disappeared below deck, James watches the enormous slosh of water on deck dribble one way and then the other as the ship softly crests a wave. Then he turns and doesn’t stop moving briskly, posture upright as befitting a Commander, until he’s locked his cabin door and heaved his back against it. His palms press flush against it as he slumps down to his knees, breath ragged and harsh like the sound of fabric being torn.

This is not happening. He’s not in love with the ships anatomist and naturalist.

And the certainty that he’s desperately in love with Harry Goodsir is strong enough to put him off his food at dinner, all of his appetite directed towards another man, his heart pulsing painfully with longing like a sewing pin jabbing a cushion, his voice tiny to the point of vanishing as Sir John engages him in conversation.

“James, are you quite well? Your voice sounds quite weak.” Sir John knives his food apart and forks it into his mouth as he watches James. James watches him back and manages to mash his fork against some lump on his plate.

“I had a very long conversation with the lieutenants earlier. To pass the time while we waited for the storm clouds to disperse. It’s made me a mite hoarse. I’ll be fine by morning, Sir, thank you.”

Sir John nods his understanding. In bed a few hours later, James thinks how his heart is not actually capable of being understood by Sir John or any other man on board. Who understands why some men are born with desire for other men, to touch their bodies, to know their hearts? When he checks his pocket watch by dim lamplight, he finds that he’s been lying awake for almost three hours. James swipes a hand across his sweaty forehead, then shifts and realizes his entire nightshirt is stuck to his skin. He removes it slowly, letting his hands linger on his body as he pulls it over his head. When he’s shirtless, he traces patterns over his chest with one finger and pretends the touch comes from Harry’s hands.

This _does not_ happen to him. He does _not_ let himself find people attractive, never mind a _man._ He’s third in command. He has power and authority because he’s been banning distractions from his life since he was a ships boy of twelve. It’s easy enough to plot a logical course up the ladder of success, instead of devising a logical courtship. It’s easy enough when you spend most of your time in the chilling salt spray or with the smell of gunpowder burning in your nose. It’s even easy enough on land when during a ball you give a lady a perfunctory dance and then send her back to her circle of family and friends, then searching out a Ross or a Barrow for conversation to avoid more waltzes. He has countless promotions under his belt and a bullet in his skin to attest to his devotion to his duties.

No one is worth the distraction. Not the teenage boys who teased him for writing poetry at the same time they begged to read it (poems all about nature, not the sweetest laugh of one of the boys), not the men ten years older who smiled at him fondly as he volunteered again and again and again (and not only in the hopes of still seeing their faces on the next assigned ship), not the men who touched his chest when they pinned medals on it (his heartbeat accelerating from pride, not a man’s fingers on him), not that rake George Barrow who was simply a chance to skip a few ladder rungs (so easy to tell why the woman involved was willing to risk her dignity when he had a face like that). Not in the circle of officers he moves in these days, this glorious year of 1845 when more men than ever clap when he enters a room and ask to shake his hand and inquire if he still feels pain from the bullet and ask so many questions and give so many compliments that James feels as though he could walk around with two men under each arm and the men would jockey for the space, even fight over it.

He buries his face in his hands as he thinks of all the odes to lovely boys he’s burned in boiler room fires. He thinks of how he’s fiddled with his medals, still warm from the hands of the men who’d pinned them on him. He thinks of George Barrow and that curve of his stubble up and down his cheeks. He thinks of this life of relentlessly isolated masculine company that he chose as a boy and has yet to even entertain a thought about departing, because it feels like it chose _him_ and he’s simply obeying the instincts imbedded into him by the dice that life threw for him.

The dice need obeying, not his heart. Even Harry Goodsir will not weaken him to the point of utter, hopeless distraction.

His brain automatically repeats its code. You’re third in command. You’ll be first someday. You will never, ever let a man come between you and your concentration. You will never compromise yourself. You will catch yourself before you even begin to skirt the edge of disaster. You will _catch_ yourself.

Lying awake in exhausted near-delirium as the repetition of the code peters out, his heart swoons as his mind paints him the image of Harry Goodsir smiling at the sky. Oh, I can’t catch myself this time, he thinks as he pictures Harry hauling up his net. You need to catch me instead. Wrap me up, rare as I am, study me, I don’t care, but catch me, and touch me, and have your way with me. If I’m to sweat and not sleep at night, let it be because we’re making passionate love and you’ve caught me, I’m caught, I’m caught, I’m caught…

***

He’d be lying if he said he didn’t know when, and he didn’t know why.

The choosing of Harry Goodsir as the ships anatomist, assistant surgeon, and naturalist was logical. James read the letters of recommendation for each of the candidates and their own personal statements. Harry’s was the strongest. It was really quite simple. He’d given Harry’s application to Dr. Stanley, who’d read it over, nodded, said, “I’d be happy to train him further,” and then James thought nothing about the matter until the sunny May day when the ships were loaded at the dock.

Harry had been carrying four boxes.

As he wobbled up the gangplank, one of the top boxes sliding precariously to one side, James had strode over to remove it. Inside he could hear glass tinkling against more glass but the sound, as tiny as it was, had been drowned out by the sudden cessation of thoughts from his mind, a deafening silence, as he saw Harry’s face peer at him.

“Commander Fitzjames? I saw your photo in the papers, sir, that’s how I recognize you.”

Blinking eyes, sweet crinkles at the sides of them, cheekbones you could slice yourself on, curls the loveliest shapes and most beautiful frame around his face.

James removing a box from the stack, and Harry’s slender neck and shoulders coming into sight. A twitch of James’s heart, then a beat so strong to bring him farther down than his knees, a beat to lay him prostrate in front of this man he’s just met.

“A pleasure, Mr. Goodsir. Welcome aboard.”

“I appreciate it very much, Commander.”

“The pleasure is mine.”

Pleasure at his body, and, James learned quickly, pleasure at Harry’s passion strong enough to burst dams as Harry sat on deck day after day with two or more notebooks open at once, ready to engage any passing crewman with his observations, and then his first haul of the net and his near-screams of joy when he fell to hands and knees to gaze on his triumph. His whole body bathed and sheened in freezing seawater as he flung his head up and closed his eyes and smiled again and again and so powerfully that it could surely knock the sun off-kilter.

Harry, reaching out a hand to James passing by. “Commander, I’ve made a breakthrough.”  
“Oh, truly?”

“A new species, I’m certain of it.”

“Excellent, Mr. Goodsir. Name it after yourself.”

“Oh, no! The name must be in Latin. There cannot be a _Harryus Goodsirus._ ”

James snorting in genuine amusement, continuing on his way, and forgetting where he was headed before Harry’s warm voice spun his head around, and around, and around.

Harry learning that Sir John had set up a special table in his cabin for Harry to use. “Oh, mercy,” Harry whispering, hands shaking as Sir John clapped him on the back. “A great honor. There is surely none higher.” And then a very brisk walk to box all his equipment back up for the move, Sir John chuckling as Harry’s footsteps nearly slapping on the floor.

“James, he is the most delightful creature. God blessed him with his mind, and us with his zest. What an excellent choice you made. He’ll be the making of our name in the naturalist circles when we are home.”  
“Indeed, sir. God guided my hand in the matter.”

The time when Harry guided his own hand into James’s mouth, when James sat miserably in the infirmary with a toothache, pain buzzing near his gum. Harry mixing a powder and ever so gently tapping a pinch-full onto James’s palm. “Apply it three times a day. If you like, I’ll apply it first for you, so you can gauge how gently.” James watching the trajectory of Harry’s finger into James’s open mouth, the most surreal kind of intimacy, the most bizarre, and hopelessly exciting, as strange as the idea of Harry touching James’s gum could be erotic in any way.

But Harry’s finger in his mouth.

The stuff of dreams.

And soon the stuff of fantasies. James writing kind comments about Harry’s net-hauling and specimen-discovering, the joy with which the other men watched him yelp and half-dance when the net yielded treasures. Papers folded, envelopes licked shut, careful messages left behind in Greenland to be dispatched back to England.

Very private messages running between James to Harry in his thoughts in the pitch black of his cabin, James rolling this way and that, hand dragging through his hair, one heel running up his shin.

You’re so beautiful. Yes, you’re easy to look at, the easiest man I’ve ever looked at, I want to put my hands on every inch of your body every day for the rest of my life. Yes. Yes, I want to hear you tell me every story you have about your life as a student, growing up, what you loved when you were a child, how science snared you, how you find happiness in tiny forms of life, how they become as big as the world to you, tell me, Harry, tell me all of it. Yes. Tell me why you’re here. You could be so successful forever at a university, as a lecturer, students would fight each other for seats in your classes. But you’re here and you do nothing but infuse joy into the very wood of this vessel. We sail lighter on the sea thanks to you. Yes. Give me all your thoughts, Harry. Speak to me. Put your hands on me and your voice in my ear. Yes. Oh god, yes. I really thought I wanted to climb the ladder of success more than anything. I still want to climb. I’d never want to be anywhere but here. But when this is over and we’re home again, take me with you. Just lead me by the hand and take me wherever you want to go. Come with me if I go back to sea. Come into my cabin at night. Stay with me until morning. Ravish me. So hard and long that your passion is the only thing I feel and only thing I want to feel. I want this. Yes. Yes, yes. Harry. Yes.

***

“Here sir, I can make it easier. Every pair of eyes is different, the instrument only needs a bit of adjusting to fit neatly against yours. You’ll be seeing my new favourite in no time.”

Down in Sir John’s cabin, at Harry’s special desk, they’re alone. James keeps his eyes stuck to the microscope as Harry rolls some mechanical part on the side that does indeed make it easier for James to see the tiny specimen on the slide. It’s utterly nondescript to him but it clearly pleases Harry, so James says, “I like it very much, Mr, Goodsir. If the Passage and beyond are also full of these, it will all have been worth it for this tiny bit of to-be-Latin-named loveliness.”

A laugh bursts from Harry’s chest and James nearly cracks his neck as he jars his face away from the microscope. Harry is leaning back in his chair, gazing into his lap as he wipes his glasses on a cloth, the whole while smiling with all his teeth. “I couldn’t possibly say, sir, but I appreciate your sentiments very much.”

James feels the corners of his own lips tremble upwards but he quashes his mouth back into a neutral line as Harry pushes his glasses back behind his ears and looks at him.

James nods. “I confess my utter lack of knowledge in the study of naturalism. Your study of cells, though – I hear it acquired you some level of fame.”

“Oh, that old thing.” Harry scrunches one eye closed as he shrugs a shoulder. “My brother wrote the majority of the work. I contributed a few finishing chapters. My name has little bearing in any scientific context in any circle.”

“I don’t believe you give yourself enough credit. It was the surety and originality of your writing that first commended you to me by your peers, Mr. Goodsir.”

Harry’s smile is small and his voice quiet, almost delicate. “I’ll forever be appreciative, sir. I only cannot hold myself in too high esteem. I’m not one of a kind. I must be modest.”

“Modesty is your charm.”

Oh no. Too much? Yes. Far too much.

Dangerous.

A panicked feeling immediately strikes against his ribs. He can save this.

He almost wants to sob. When he thinks of cells, he thinks of his own tired batch wilting in his body from a lifetime’s lack of love. Then he _does_ want to sob, because there will never be anyone he wants more than Harry, of this he is sure of, and scared of, because they’ll part one day and then he’ll be truly alone. He’s less and less surprised that he’s overstepped just now as he feels his heart, unlucky in its lot in life of desiring men, bleed out. Just when he believes it must be shriveling from lack of blood, it wells up again and he’s so frustrated he feels like he could claw a forest of trees down with his bare hands, teeth sunk around the bark to keep his sobs silent.

He is a man who roils more than any storm at sea. But it’s his lot, and he’ll save this conversation and be on his way to another night of empty beds and empty hopes.

James blindly reaches for the microscope and taps at it furiously. “It’s an asset. Modesty. An asset, you know. So many of us are veritable trumpets, blasting our achievements from this end of kingdom come to the other.” He skitters his fingers along the table edge. “I am sure I am guilty of this. Many times over. Miserably showboating. I’m very guilty. Just the other day I was naming all of my medals. Can you believe. Here, on the endless sea, where such physical representations of assumed success do me not a whit of good. That is how guilty I am.”

He opens his mouth to babble on but Harry moves his shoulders forward and one of his hands hovers not quite near James’s, but not quite far from it either. “Sir. If I may. I do wish you’d cease calling yourself guilty. You make yourself sound like a criminal. I almost fear you are trying to convince me you’ve done some terrible wrong, when I know this not to be true.”

“And how?” The trapped bird of panic sinks its claws between James’s ribs and he can’t still his tongue. “You are vastly intelligent, Mr. Goodsir. But my character is not in your wheelhouse. I’m deeply afraid it’s beyond your reach completely.”

“That may be.” Harry obscures his face briefly by pushing his glasses up his nose but when he drops his hand, his features are pinched, upset. “But I wish you knew how honored I feel, how deeply privileged I consider myself to know whatever suits you to impart to me about yourself.”

“I’m fucked.”

The panic bird screams and James collapses down into his chair and his elbow thumps the table hard enough to bounce the slide on the microscope to fall off the tray and towards the table edge, but Harry does not stop it.

***

James lays his head back against his cabin door as soon as he’s all but slammed it shut. He’d risen steadily from his seat in Sir John’s cabin, clunked his feet stiffly across the boards, then half fallen against the wall as he’d stumbled foot over foot back to his rooms. He’d not looked at Harry once.

Vapid and useless thoughts bounce through his mind. A memory of some pulp novel he read as a boy where a wizard brewed a potion to make you forget things. Concocting the drops and dripping them in Harry’s dinner. All of the incident then forgotten.

The extremely unrealistic possibility, so vastly unlikely as to be screeched at with laughter, that he and Harry will simply continue exactly as they were before the event happened.

The possibility that Harry relates to James somehow.

The last thought is the worst. James wouldn’t wish his anguish on anyone, least of all the beautiful, uncorrupt, practical angel that is Harry Goodsir.

The one time James didn’t manage to staunch his bleeding, and it was in front of the man he wants so desperately. Life, God, Fate, Destiny. They must be doubled over in laughter right now.

So it’s with horrific alarm when a knock hits the door and reverberates through James’s head. He falls on his side on the floor away from it as he hears, “Commander? May I speak with you, sir?”

James has no words.

Harry has plenty. “Sir, what happened just now. I’m terribly worried that you think you’ve offended me. I need you to know that you haven’t. I won’t ask you to open the door, sir. I won’t ask you to even answer me in turn. But if you’d only listen to me. It would gratify me very much.”

James is leaning on his arm at a painful angle but his body feels useless and the pain inconsequential as he realizes he’s clinging to each of Harry’s words as strongly as a man would cling to the last shred of his life as he knows he’s dying before his time.

“Sir.” Harry’s voice muffled behind the wood but still distinct in its cadences. “Sir, I gather you feel quite alone. I only wish you to know that I feel the same very often. Quite often, in fact. All of the time, to put it very plainly. I’m more than aware how much the men find me amusing. That they may even be fond of me in my enthusiasm for my work. But they’ve not an idea who I really am, either, just as you said that I do not know much about you yourself. It’s a dreadful feeling, sir, to feel unknown by anyone. I do not know how much comfort I can give you, if any. But I wish to say that if I could, I would like to.” His voice drops in volume and takes on that beautiful delicacy. “Sir, it would make me glad. And that’s all, I promise.” The thick sound of his throat clearing. “Alright, sir, I’ve taken up enough of your time. I’ll be going. I’m going to-”

James thinks he can feel a vibration surrounding him in the air. “To feel unknown by anyone.” It’s been the sorrow of his life and Harry has just put his finger in the current of James’s blazing certainties, warping their path, awakening doubts he thought nonexistent. But claps of thunder couldn’t be louder than his certainty right now.

He wanted Harry to catch him.

He doesn’t fall into the snare. He embraces it and it doesn’t snap shut with steel. It ties off a wound.

James hurls himself to his feet, swings the door open, hauls Harry inside by the front of his shirt, and pulls him flush against his chest. When Harry’s arms move quickly to clutch James’s back in return, James feels like an arrow could shoot them both down and he’d still rise and touch a higher plane that only men in love can find a glowing, promising light in.

***

“You’ve done this before.” It’s not a question, as James breathes into Harry’s hair, smelling like sea-salt, but so glorious, so novel, as if James is smelling it for the first time. And he supposes he is, in the body of the man he wants.

“Yes.” Harry traces lines up and down James’s back and then joyfully huffs a laugh as James tumbles them clumsily down onto the bed. “Many times.”

“Oh my god.”

“If…if that makes you uncomfortable…”

“No.” James buries his face in Harry’s neck. He’s shocked, but he knows he could never want Harry less.

“You’ll be wondering with whom, I imagine.”

“Fellow students?”

“Yes. And a professor.”

“Oh my god.”

“After term ended. If that makes any difference.”

“Oh god. I only.” James laughs so hard into Harry’s shoulder that he has to move his face back, lest he tip Harry over. “I wouldn’t have guessed. Never, not ever.”

“I expect not. I’m very good at hiding things. That my main joy in life is being with another man and not, in fact, a specimen.”

James pulls all the way back from Harry so that only their hands are touching. “I didn’t hide well. You knew about me.”

“Oh yes. Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that to sound flip.” Harry traces the back of James’s hand. “It was only obvious because you tried so hard to hide it.”

“Really.” James moves back to him and threads their fingers together. “Tell me. Please,” he whispers, because this is happening and he has a chance and he has to hold it fast against his breast.

Harry licks his lips and tilts his head, looking away from James. “You don’t speak to me unless I speak to you first. Your sentences are clipped. Your words are general. You only look at me when you believe I can’t see you. Or when many of the men look at me, so that your looking doesn’t seem unusual. You walk by me without looking. I have to attempt to attract your attention. I thought you were bricking yourself up against me, very sturdy, an impenetrable wall. I think I…I think I wanted you so much that I wrote you off completely as too impossible to even try to engage lest I hurt myself.”

James unthreads their fingers and takes Harry’s face in his hands. “Harry. I’m a Commander. You’re an officer. How could you have thought it would be safe for you to approach me? I could have had you flogged.”

“I knew you wouldn’t.”

“Oh my god, Harry.” James shakes Harry’s shoulders. “You cannot be too careful in these matters.”

“I’ve been too alone to care much.”

James leans back from him. “But all the other men…?”

“I said I’d _been_ with them. I didn’t say they loved me.”

“But you thought you were safe because you thought _I_ loved you?” And he regrets the words before they’re half out of his mouth. They taste like mud, like the worst sentence he’s ever had the stupidity to let barrel out of him, as awful as if he’d slapped Harry across both cheeks. And James realizes he’s shivering himself when Harry shrugs him off and holds his shoulders instead.

“It doesn’t matter if you love me or not. I’ll be alright. I’ve had to be alright all my life. You can want me but not love me. I won’t think less of you, even if I were allowed to, which, technically, I am not.”

James grinds his teeth. “Blast all that. Blast me being a Commander. You’ve been reckless, Harry, but I’m being reckless too, but I want to be. I’m out of control right now.” He scrubs a hand through his hair and swallows. “I suppose I’ve been that way the whole time I’ve known you. Too much control can be none at all.

Harry nods, inching closer so that their foreheads touch. “That’s why I wasn’t scared of punishment. And when you have nothing, you become desperate for anything. Even if you know it might all go to pieces. That’s how I’ve been feeling when I’m around you. I have wanted you so much. And been hopeless to have you. But I’d do anything.” He whispers in that delicate voice. “Anything. So, you understand now, you are not, in fact, actually fucked.”

As he almost cries in relief, James thinks of the restless nights of tossing and turning and gasping over the hemorrhaging in his heart. If this is being given to him now, if Harry is giving himself to him, then truly blast it all, let every bliss that has ever existed in the world be honored in this moment. Let new bliss be born. There’s a heat unraveling in the core of him and Harry is cupping it in both his hands.

“I am, indeed, truly, very much in love with you,” he manages to rasp before he brings their mouths together and gorgeous things begin to happen. “So fuck me in the way I want to be.”

***

They roll around on the bed but it’s not tossing and turning. It’s rollicking fun, and it’s better than magic must be.

Despite never having been with a man, James doesn’t feel lost as he rolls on top of Harry and holds his hands down while he kisses and tongues his way along his jaw and neck and into the hollow of his throat. Harry has his neck arched back and he’s humming, his Adam’s apple vibrating. James puts his mouth on it until Harry yanks his hands out from under James’s and rolls him over.

“How rough do you want this to be?” Harry asks him between kisses.

“Hard.” James digs his fingers into Harry’s shoulder blades, the bones under his skin flexing and James holding on to them for dear life. “Hard as you know how.”

Harry grabs James’s hands and slams them back into the mattress. “Hard like that?”

“ _Oh_. Do that again.”

So Harry does and James brings his knees up on either side of Harry and cradles him between his hips as Harry licks down his chest. Pleasure flutters in the kick of his heart, in the fevered flow of his blood, the nerves under his skin that are dry tinder for the sparks Harry sets alight with his lips and his tongue.

Harry is not a distraction. Harry is a bones-deep desire. James is making a choice to give into that desire. Ships, wars, and career success have been good, but this isn’t _good_ , this is his soul’s cry that he’s finally soothing. The heart and body of Harry could be the last things he experiences on this earth and he’ll have quieted all of the damned distractions within the wild, natural sound of the calling he’s answering.

He finally gets to wrap Harry’s curls around his fingers as he holds Harry’s head in place as Harry takes him all the way down his throat. James’s heels are dug into the mattress, hips rising in quick rhythm and it’s not half a minute before he feels like he could release and he can’t allow this to end too soon. So he hauls Harry back up onto his chest, rolls them both over, and kneels up, knees on either side of Harry’s hips. Harry tilts his head on the pillow and his eyes are glazed. Starry, even, light shining from every corner. He catches a bead of sweat running down James’s chest and rubs it onto his own chest instead. James presses his palms flush against Harry’s ribs as he leans down and takes one nipple in his mouth, licking it with the tip of his tongue, not an idea if he’s doing this _right_. But Harry’s breathing is fast and shallow and he’s humming again and moving his legs up and squeezing his thighs against James’s knees.

“James.”

He opens his eyes and gazes up into Harry’s just as Harry is pushing James’s hands more firmly against his ribs. He chuckles, once, and the sound is sweet like a dove cooing.

“Yes?”

“Harder. If you don’t mind.” Harry moves his hands to James’s back and runs them up and down the length until he’s clutching one arse cheek and James breathes a ragged tune.

“I don’t mind.” He doesn’t finish the sentence before his voice is muffled as he sucks Harry with more speed and further into his mouth and Harry responds by squeezing him reflexively. They’re starting to rub against each other now, hips rolling out of sync, glorious as James feels his ecstasy pulsing a beat stronger every moment. He feels wetness between them and he doesn’t know whose it is, it might be both of theirs, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that he’s heaving Harry over on top of him again and Harry happily gives way and James watches him toss his curls and feels him stretch his calves as they tangle between James’s own.

“Are you happy?” Harry leans to James’s ear as their hips start moving up and down again.

James tries for words but only manages a “ _Hmm_ ” sound in the back of his throat. He clears it determinedly and Harry laughs into his neck, breath warm enough to fog a window.

James considers. He has Harry flush on top of them, there’s a delightful smear of wetness against his belly, and he asked to be fucked hard. “Overjoyed,” he whispers throatily. “But there’s more you can do.”

“Tell me.”

“Fuck inside of me.”

Harry freezes, then pulls his face away, eyes wide. “James. That’s quite something for-”

“-for my first time. Yes. I know. I don’t seem to care.”

Harry pushes a hand back through his hair, lips playing at a smile, his eyes somewhere over James’s head, which isn’t where James wants them. So he takes Harry’s face in his hands and pulls their foreheads together.

“You know how to do it?”

Harry laughs but not at all unkindly. “Yes. But I wouldn’t have imagined you did.”

“I confiscated some interesting literature from a group of my subordinates once. I may have looked it over before I threw it in the rubbish. I might have memorized some of it.”

“What happened to the subordinates?” Harry’s voice takes on a serious note suddenly.

James strokes the back of his neck. “I didn’t punish them, if that’s what you’re asking. I gave them a warning, and I told no one. Except you, now.”

Harry relaxes into his touch. “They’ll never know how lucky they were.”

“No.” And it’s James who feels a small grip of sadness around his heart now, a sadness for all the other men like them who will never experience what he is in this moment. Love through touch. Love at all, maybe. “I don’t take this for granted, Harry.”

“I know. I never will, either. You said you were in love with me, earlier.”

“Yes.” James traces one of Harry’s cheekbones, then the other. “I mean it.”

Harry sighs.

“I? What…? Harry, what did I-”

“No no no.” Harry rubs his cheek into James’s touch. “It’s only the first time anyone has ever said that me.”

“None of the men before?”

“None.”

“God.”

“You’ve been worth the wait,” Harry whispers, gently rubbing their cheeks together. He runs the pad of his finger across James’s lips. “I’ve actually never been in love before you.”

James kisses against Harry’s finger. The thought “He’s in love with me too,” makes his heart expand and contract rapidly, the pain almost sharp enough to bring tears to his eyes at the same time he feels sweetness keen as though he’s drinking fine wine after being parched for days. This is the world spinning on an axis he can finally stand steady on.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“And I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

“Serious about loving you and serious about wanting you to fuck me into the mattress.”

Harry bursts out laughing.

James bumps their noses together. “Will you?”

Harry breathes in. “We stop _immediately_ if you don’t like it.”

“So that’s still a _yes_.”

Harry whimpers as he nods, and soon their clothes are scattered across the floor like the wind has blown through them.

James turns out liking it. Quite a bit. He’s decidedly immediately addicted to it. The whole process, from Harry licking his fingers and pushing one, then two inside James, who runs one foot up and down the sheets convulsively as he’s filled up. And it’s not enough, not until he guides Harry into his body himself, and they have to keep still for a few moments, breaths completely lost, the sharp angles of Harry’s hipbones the most delicious weight. And the loss of control as the experience makes James feel even more attuned to Harry, like a key turning smoothly in a lock and opening it to find a matching heart he can hold against his own.

He thinks along these lines until Harry gently pulls back and pushes in again and there’s some wondrous, heaven-created spot inside of James he did not learn about in the confiscated literature and Harry has to cover James’s mouth as a bursting cry of pleasure keeps breaking from his throat. He thrusts his face into Harry’s neck to muffle the ecstatic bursts of his voice as Harry angles himself to keep pressing against the spot, his breathing out of rhythm even as he moves his body surely and swiftly. James grabs both of Harry’s arse cheeks to try to push him further in even when Harry is up to the hilt. Even if there’s no actual effect on how deeply he moves Harry inside him, it feels like a perfect thing to do. And when he manages to breathe, “ _Harder_ ” into Harry neck, Harry nods into his shoulder and pounds into him just like he’d asked. James cradles Harry between his knees again as his pleasure swells with each buck of Harry’s hips. The feeling of another man inside him after empty, touch-less years makes him want to scream in joy and he hopes one day that they’ll have their own home with no neighbors nearby and he can yell as loud as he wants, especially as Harry himself begins to moan, “Oh, _oh oh oh,”_ and James thinks he must be close. It’s the worst shame they can’t cry aloud together, but James accepts it for the moment. Harry’s length and thickness and James stretched open to fit him is written in permanent ink on the list of things he will never take for granted in this life.

It’s with a wordless _thank_ _you_ to life as he realizes he’s tipping over the edge and his knees shake as he relishes the last few pounds into the mattress before he can’t hold back anymore and his mind is bursting with bliss as the pleasure pools faster and sharper and it’s all he could ask for as he comes. Harry arches his back and even though James is still learning another man’s body, he knows that Harry has come only moments after him. Harry has bitten his lip hard enough to make his cry sound like a song being tamped down but yearning to burst free. But it’s beautiful, as is the sight of Harry’s squeezed-shut as he lowers himself down to his elbows and takes James’s face in his hands again.

“How…oh _god_ …did…did I fuck you far enough into the mattress for your liking?”

James twists his hands through Harry’s hair as their chests still heave against each other. “Well this is only the first time, isn’t it? It remains – _mm_ , stay in me still, please, don’t leave – we’ll have to do it again to see if I can go any farther in, won’t we?”

Harry’s laughter is sweet as a running brook. James basks in the sound, then finds Harry’s lips and kisses him with his whole mouth open. They lay like that for some time, kissing hard, kissing softer, then kissing hard again. James finally rolls Harry onto his back again before Harry shoves him off and they struggle for position until they’re worn out again and only have energy for more kissing.

Fucked, kissed, and satisfied, James strokes Harry’s face until the clock chimes for dinner and they have to go but the promise of more later is agreed upon. And James does sob, just once, and Harry’s arms around him makes James feel caught, finally, perfectly.

***

“I hope you’ve done your worst.”

“It is altogether so terrible that I must merely paraphrase to keep your feelings intact.”

Gore snorts and re-crosses his legs in his chair across from James’s as James straightens out his paper. “‘Lieutenant Graham Gore is acknowledged by everyone in his company as affable to a fault. He has talents in the artistic areas, such as music and drawing, although sometimes his talents leave him abruptly and the noise and artwork are acknowledged by everyone to be quite dreadful. In all fairness, however, he is altogether a capital fellow.’”

Gore pulls his face back and scrunches it up. “‘A _capital_ fellow. What does that word even mean? ‘ _Capital._ ’ I’ve not an idea what that means, Commander, it’s an utterly empty adjective, and I would like you to strike it out.”

“Now now, Lieutenant Gore.” Sir John turns from his chair at Harry’s desk. “I know very well what the word means. It means, ‘Fine, and upstanding.’ It is a high compliment.”

(“ _Upstanding_ ,” James whispers as Harry lines up to enter him. “‘Standing up.’ So very much like your prick right now.”

“Shut…shut up and hold it if you don’t want to look at it.”

“I always want to look at it, but, well, if that’s an invitation…”)

James finishes his piece with a flourish of his hand and tucks it into his breast pocket. “Sir John is, as always, completely correct. I complimented you, Lieutenant. I’m sending this back to England with my other sketches of all of us. You’ll have to make do until it’s in your hands again and you can violently scratch out the word ‘capital’ yourself.”

Gore rolls his eyes. “I’ve really had quite enough of being picked apart by you, Commander. Mr. Goodsir would never devastate me in the way you do. I think I’m rather done speaking to you. Possibly for the rest of the voyage. Mr. Goodsir, may I have a look when you’re finished? Your new slide is blessedly quiet in its assessments of me.”

“My dear fellow.” Sir John beckons Gore over. “Mr. Goodsir has outdone himself this time.”

(“Am I – _hmm, hmm_ – _out-doing_ myself? Is there a deeper dent in the mattress?”

“I’m not sure. Roll over and I’ll have a look. A chore – _yes_ – a chore but it needs seeing after.”)

Sir John rises from his chair and Gore sits next to Harry, who explains his theory of this plankton’s important role in the Arctic ecosystem. He doesn’t look at James but he’s sliding one finger back and forth on the side of the table, his code for _I’m thinking of you._

James’s heart gives a squeeze and he looks back down at his writing desk in his lap. When he looks up again some moments later, Gore is turned in his chair and watching him. James raises his eyebrows at him and Gore gives the slightest shrug of his shoulder. He rises from his seat and claps Harry on the back. “I hope you know, Mr. Goodsir, how proud we are of you.”

(“Proud, are you?” Harry caresses James’s hipbones as James slides up and down him, arching his back. “You’re an expert for a first time with this particular position…I think you…”

“What?” James gasps as he rides Harry harder, so hard that Harry’s head is bouncing up from the pillow and his legs tipped to either side of James’s hips move up and down convulsively. “What do you think?”

“I don’t…I can’t remember. I’ve lost the thought.”

“Wrap your hand around me and maybe a new one will come to you.”

“Maybe we’ll both come…maybe at the same time…”)

Harry smiles up at Gore. “It’s a great pleasure to know I make everyone proud. Thank you.”

Gore smiles back at him and claps him on the back once more before turning to Sir John. “Sir, by the clock, I expect Captain Crozier will arrive soon.”

“Ah, yes.” Sir John adjusts a button on his coat and doesn’t manage to suppress a small _huff_ of a sigh. “He accepted the dinner invitation. I must be satisfied in that knowledge until I see the rowboat in the distance. And I’d like, gentlemen, to introduce our Mr. Goodsir to him again.”

Harry swings his head around from the microscope, eyes wide. “Sir John?”

“Now now.” Sir John smiles benevolently at Harry. “I am aware you have met Captain Crozier on several occasions, but not since your miraculous discovery today.”

“Oh, sir. ‘Miraculous’ is a very strong word, I know not yet if that word is truly descriptive…”

(“James, my miracle.”

“Harry.”

“Yes?”

“I’ll cry all over you if you keep talking like that.”

“I can’t stop.”

“I never said I wanted you to.”

“I don’t have a handkerchief. I’ll have to use my fingertips.”

“Your skin. I’m not a miracle. But your skin. A blessing.”

“Stop.”

“Really?”

“No.”)

“At any rate, it is something we are all proud of. Will you accompany me on deck as we welcome the Captain?”

“Of course, sir. My pleasure.”

“James, you’ve not had a turn at the microscope. Take a look, then find us on deck.”

“Sir. I will.”

“Very good. What a wonderful evening.” Sir John gazes fondly at the three of them. “Now, Mr. Goodsir, let us throw you a parade.”

Harry scoots his chair back as Sir John exits the cabin. He smiles again at Gore with a tip of his head, then meets James’s eyes. His expression is respectful, which means he’s imparting _I love you_.

“Mr. Goodsir.”

“Commander.” Harry walks by his chair as he passes, with perfect ease.

James tucks his papers into his lap-desk and rises. Gore is next to him the moment the door closes. He lays a hand on James’s forearm. “I know,” he says plainly.

James feels heat pass down the back of his spine and he tries and fails to suppress a swallow. “Lieutenant?”

“‘Graham.’ We all know each other, you and I and Harry. You two have to be careful. Harry does well. You need to do better. Talk to him more when we’re not alone in the room. He’s probably already told you to do that. But it bears repeating. Because I want you to be safe.”

The heat starts to burn in earnest. “I…how did you…?”

“He didn’t tell me, if that’s what you’re wondering. You’re just a little too easy to read for someone like me, so I came to him earlier today. And I thought it was only fair that you both should know that I know. Because I’ve been here, James. I know how to play this. So be _careful_. Sir John is all mirth and merriness but you’d each get the cat and then discharge and then hiding forever and you know it. So do better, alright? For me? For him? For all of us who can’t speak openly in front of the others? In front of almost everyone? Because he’s precious. I know I don’t have to tell you that either, but he’s worth more than all of gold to me alone, so I’m sure I can’t put into words what he means to you.”

The heat flares and then simmers down. A heart mended still remembers the echoes of pain, of enforced silence, of loneliness. James leans his head back against the wall. “I should have known, really. Once I knew him, I knew I wasn’t an impossible being, the way my heart leans.”

“And that’s the other thing I wanted you to know. We have to hold each other close, all of us who love each other. You and he are not alone here. I thought that might be heartening for you both.”

“It is.” James knuckles a bit of wet from one eye and sniffs. “Oh, god. Graham. I thought loneliness would be the end of me. That my heart would give out from it. So. Thank you.”

Graham grasps his forearm again. “Never alone. Not ever. I’ll see you at dinner. Do better. Please. For his sake if no one else’s.”

“I will.”

So James Fitzjames learns to do better. He addresses Harry without being addressed by him first. He keeps the conversation going at a steady clip, at dinner, in Sir John’s cabin, even in the hallways as men pass them by. Occasionally he even grabs hold of Harry’s net when it proves unwieldly after being hauled up. The men give him a round of applause and James gives them a pretentiously long mock bow. He gestures Harry over to the ships rail some nights and points at the shimmering greens and glowing purples and endless scatters of stars like distant shining coins. He positions both of his hands to make a frame with his fingers as a knot of men pass them in the fast-dimming light.

“Magnetism. I hear you’ve studied it. Have you published anything?”

“Not yet, Commander. It’s not my area of expertise, although I hope I’ll learn to make better observations as we keep sailing.”

“Indeed. A remarkable art form is science. How am I doing?”

“Very well. I think the men are becoming fonder of you, too.”

“Really?”

“Some of the boys told me you said something witty to me and they hoped you’d deign to return the favor to them.”

“I see. Well.” James skims his hand along the rail, close to Harry’s fingers, then away again. “Are you proud of me, Harry?”

Harry traces the rail to James’s hand and back again. “With every breath and every moment between those breaths.” His voice is delicately quiet but he turns to James, who looks back at him. Harry’s eyes are bright even in the near-dark. James prays they’ll never lose this quality.

Harry smiles with all his teeth. A tingle of pleasure trips down James’s arms and spine. “I love you. I wish to see the day when I can write a report on that and publish it along with your cell book.”

Harry muffles his laughter into his gloved hand. “You’ll never let the ‘cell book’ be, will you?”

“Not likely.”

“I want to tell you I love you many times tonight. Will you accompany me below deck?”

James pushes off the railing and walks away from Harry but turns his head back. “You’ll have to catch me.”

Harry leans his elbows on the back against the side before leaning forward and following. “I thought I already had.”

“Not tonight. I’m not in your arms yet.”

He is, though, only a matter of minutes later. And every night until they leave the ship for the last time. And even then, when they can’t kiss or roll around in bed, they travel miles through life together, in body and soul, and then only in spirit, but forever. 

**Author's Note:**

> As you can see, this has more elements of Real Life Goodsir than in the show, which did not focus on his talents as a naturalist (his chapters on the cells in that book are real). I used a very few words here and there from Fitzjames's "sketches" of the men but tried mostly to write my own.


End file.
